Pixelmator Support
Pixelmator Pro User Guide
Pixelmator Pro User Guide
  • Welcome
  • Pixelmator Pro basics
    • Interface overview
    • Pixelmator Pro tools
    • Zoom in and out of an image
    • Scroll, pan, or rotate an image
    • Undo or redo changes
    • Choose and manage colors in Pixelmator Pro
    • Use the Pixelmator Pro Photos extension
    • Print a Pixelmator Pro document
    • Use text field math
    • Pixelmator Pro settings
      • General settings
      • Editing settings
      • Ruler, grid, and guide settings
      • Workspace settings
      • Apple Pencil settings
    • Customize the Tools sidebar
    • Customize the Pixelmator Pro toolbar
    • Use the Touch Bar with Pixelmator Pro
    • Automate tasks in Pixelmator Pro
  • Create, open, and save images
    • Open an image
    • Create a new image
    • Working with templates
    • Working with mockups
    • Edit from Photos
    • Import an image
    • Save and name an image
    • Close an image
    • About the Pixelmator Pro file format
    • About Pixelmator Pro sidecar files
  • Automatically edit images
    • Automatically enhance colors
    • Automatically increase image resolution
    • Remove color banding
    • Automatically reduce noise
    • Remove image background
    • Hide image background
    • Automatically crop and straighten images
    • Automatically match image colors
    • Decontaminate colors
  • Work with layers
    • Create layers
    • Color adjustments and effects layers
    • Use the Arrange tool
    • Select layers
    • Move and align layers
    • Resize, rotate, and flip layers
    • Transform layers
    • Convert layers into pixels
    • Use rulers
    • Use alignment guides
    • Organize and manage layers
    • Replace image
    • Video layers
  • Add masks
    • Working with bitmap masks
    • Working with vector masks
    • Open and edit images with Portrait Masks
    • Use clipping masks
  • Customize layers using styles
    • Adjust the opacity of a layer
    • Change the blend mode of a layer
    • Add an outline around a layer
    • Fill a layer with a color or gradient
    • Add an inner shadow to a layer
    • Add a drop shadow to a layer
    • Layer style presets
  • Adjust colors
    • White balance an image
    • Adjust hue, saturation, and vibrance
    • Adjust lightness, clarity, and texture
    • Selectively adjust clarity and texture of an image
    • Selectively balance the colors in an image
    • Adjust individual colors in an image
    • Adjust the levels of an image
    • Adjust the tonal curve of an image
    • Replace one color in an image with another
    • Remove color from an image or video
    • Manually convert a color image to black and white
    • Convert an image to black and white with a color tint
    • Apply a sepia tint
    • Fade the shadows or highlights of an image
    • Mix the color channels of an image
    • Invert the colors of an image
    • Apply a vignette
    • Sharpen an image
    • Add film grain to an image
    • Apply LUTs
    • Color adjustment presets
    • Working with RAW images
    • Reading histograms
    • About color management
    • Change the color profile of an image
    • Change the color depth of an image
    • See what an image looks like on another device
  • Retouch and reshape layers
    • Remove an object from an image
    • Copy part of an image from one area to another
    • Lighten a specific area of an image
    • Darken a specific area of an image
    • Make a specific area of an image more vibrant
    • Desaturate a specific area of an image
    • Sharpen a specific area of an image
    • Soften a specific area of an image
    • Smudge a specific area of an image
    • Warp a specific area of an image
    • Bump a specific area of an image
    • Pinch a specific area of an image
    • Twirl a specific area of an image
  • Add effects
    • Apply blur effects
    • Apply distortion effects
    • Apply sharpen effects
    • Apply color adjustment effects
    • Apply tile effects
    • Apply stylize effects
    • Apply halftone effects
    • Apply generator effects
    • Apply fill effects
    • Apply other effects
    • Effect presets
  • Paint and erase
    • Use the brushes browser
    • Stroke with a brush
    • Quickly fill an image with color
    • Fill specific areas of an image with color
    • Fill with the Gradient Fill tool
    • Paint with the Pixel Paint tool
    • Erase using the Smart Erase tool
    • Edit brush settings
    • Create a brush
    • Share and import brushes
  • Make selections
    • Select areas by shape or color
    • Select areas by drawing
    • Make rectangular, elliptical, or row selections
    • Select all opaque areas of a layer
    • Select the entire image
    • Automatically select a subject in an image
    • Adjust selections
    • Refine selections
    • Move, copy, and delete selected areas
    • Convert selections into shapes
  • Draw shapes and vector graphics
    • Arrange and combine shapes
    • Draw shapes with the Pen tool
    • Draw shapes with the Freeform Pen tool
    • Edit vector paths
    • Save and share custom shapes
  • Use the Type tool
    • Add text on a path
    • Copy and paste text
    • Use dictation to enter text
    • Change the font or font size
    • Add bold, italic, underline, or strikethrough to text
    • Convert text into an outline
    • Change the color of text
    • Change text capitalization
    • Align and space text
    • Format characters
    • Convert text into a shape or pixel layer
    • Text style presets
  • Resize, crop and straighten images
    • Rotate and flip an image
    • Trim away colored or transparent borders around an image
    • Reveal parts of an image beyond the canvas
    • Crop presets
    • Change the image size
    • Change the canvas size
  • Export and share images
    • Export an image or video for the web
    • Slice designs into individual images
    • Quickly export or share an optimized image
    • Export presets
  • Pixelmator Pro keyboard shortcuts
    • Customize keyboard shortcuts
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  1. Create, open, and save images

Open an image

PreviousCreate, open, and save imagesNextCreate a new image

Last updated 10 months ago

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  • Open an existing document
  • Opening vector and bitmap PDFs

You can open images in a variety of different image formats saved on your Mac, in iCloud Drive, on connected servers, and third-party storage providers. The following file formats are supported in Pixelmator Pro: PXD, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC, PSD, SVG, PDF, GIF, BMP, TGA, WebP, JPEG-2000, macOS-supported RAW formats.

Open an existing document

  • Open an image or a document on your Mac: Launch Pixelmator Pro and in the welcome screen, click "Browse files on your Mac". To open images directly from their original locations on your Mac, drag the images or documents onto the Pixelmator Pro icon in the Dock. You can also Control ⌃-click the file in its folder and choose Open With > Pixelmator Pro.

  • Open an image you recently worked on: Launch Pixelmator Pro and in the welcome screen, choose from the recently opened images on the right. You can also choose File > Open Recent (from the File menu at the top of your screen). To change the number of recent documents displayed, go to macOS System Preferences > General, and choose a number from the Recent items pop-up menu.

  • Open an image from macOS Photos: Launch Pixelmator Pro and in the welcome screen, choose "Open the Photos browser". You can also choose File > New from Photos to open the Photos browser. In the sidebar on the left, browse the Photos albums to locate an image you'd like to import. Select and click OK, or simply double-click the image thumbnail to open the image.

  • Open an image stored somewhere else than your Mac (such as iCloud Drive): Launch Pixelmator Pro and in the welcome screen, click "Browse files on your Mac". Click the pop-up menu at the top of the Open dialog (shown below) that appears, then choose the location where the image is saved. Locate and double-click a file to open it.

💡 Tip: You can also open images by simply dragging them from a website on Safari or a folder in Finder onto the Pixelmator Pro icon in the Dock.

Typically when you open an image in Pixelmator Pro it gets automatically converted to PXD — the Pixelmator Pro file format — so when you save the image, any additional layers and advanced formatting you add are not lost and remain editable. Once you finish editing and would like to share an image with someone else or upload it online, you can save it as a JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, or HEIC image or export it.

Alternatively, instead of importing images as PXD documents, you can choose to open them in their original file format — JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, or HEIC — and save changes directly back to the same file format using sidecar files. This workflow lets you share the edited images directly, without having to export them first. You can learn more about different editing workflows in Pixelmator Pro and change how it opens images in the article about Editing settings.

Opening vector and bitmap PDFs

In Pixelmator Pro, you can choose to open PDF documents as bitmaps (an image-based type of PDF), or vector PDFs (PDFs that support layers). Vector PDFs let you edit shape and image elements in PDFs as separate layers and scale documents to any size without losing quality. Bitmap PDFs open with all their contents merged into a single page which also has a fixed resolution. Because of this, bitmap PDFs have more limited options for editing and may lose quality when upscaling.

When opening multi-page PDFs in Pixelmator Pro, you can also choose which page you'd like to open and edit.

  1. Open a PDF document in Pixelmator Pro.

  2. In the PDF open dialog, choose how to open the PDF document:

    • For multi-page PDFs, browse the list of pages on the left to select the one you wish to open.

    • Adjust the Width and Height of the PDF document and set the desired resolution.

    • To open the document as a vector PDF with layers, make sure "Import PDF with layers" is selected. Deselect this option if you want to import a flattened, bitmap PDF.

  3. Click Import.

When you open a Pixelmator Pro document that uses fonts not installed on your Mac, a missing font notification appears briefly at the top of the image. In the notification, click Show and choose a replacement font.